Support your local theater

La Paloma Theatre is an irreplaceable treasure: a link to Encinitas' past and a downtown venue for independent movies and the occasional concert or other special event.

But the economics of the place must be brutal. It can't remain open forever if locals don't give it more support.

This week, fortunately, you have the opportunity to support your local theater while enjoying a very good but little-seen Hollywood film. Mud gets an almost unheard of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the critics are right. It wasn't formulaic enough to get much play in major cineplexes, but we are lucky to have it here. And don't be surprised if it gets wider release after the Oscars.

Mud is playing at La Paloma through July 4.

Keep Leucadia Trendy

Union-Trib: Leucadia evolves from funky to chic:

“Leucadia is getting very trendy,” said Criss Crozier, managing partner of Swell Property. “That whole funkiness is changing.” Many of the people who have lived here for more than 40 years are selling the older homes, which buyers are then renovating or razing to build new larger homes on the property. Crozier describes the current real estate market as “more than red hot — it’s white hot.”

Leucadia falls within the Encinitas 92024 ZIP code where the median price in 2012 for a single-family home was $755,000 – a 7.2 percent increase over the previous year. The median price for condos was $333,750. Prices in Leucadia fall into the higher end. At the low end of home sales, Crozier noted that a two-bedroom house recently sold for $799,000. “Everything else is likely to be over $1 million,” he said. At the high end, a five-bedroom oceanfront home along Neptune Avenue is currently listed for $5.5 million.

Is the Supreme Court's Koontz decision good or bad for Encinitas?

A commenter on Encinitas Undercover brought up the Supreme Court's recent Koontz decision, wherein the Court rejected a city's making a development permit contingent on the property owner forfeiting the majority of his property to the city.

The New York Times freaked out about this ruling, proclaiming it doom for "sustainable growth."  The libertarian Cato Institute mocked the NYT hysteria.  We suggest readers read both arguments and come to their own conclusions.

Casual readers of Encinitas Undercover may have read this site's coverage of Proposition A as anti-property rights.  This interpretation could not be further from the truth.  We fully support the property owner's right to develop his property to the fullest extent allowed within existing neighborhood zoning.  What we don't support is a developer bribing or otherwise persuading the city council to change the zoning for the developer's financial gain.  Proposition A should, subject to court challenge, put an end to that sort of corruption.

And now back to Koontz and its impact on Encinitas.  It would seem to this farm boy that Koontz prevents a lot of "Smart Growth" government extortion in exchange for upzoning, but Proposition A has already prohibited the same thing.... so Koontz can be seen as a rejection of the Smart Growth central planners, but Encinitas already rejected them.  Koontz is therefore largely irrelevant to Encinitas as long as Proposition A stands.

That's our opinion... what's yours?

We're #1!

And it ain't even close!

... in DUIs, that is:



1% of our Friday night 101 drivers are drunk.  Some of our drunk drivers cause fatalities.  So do some of our drunk pedestrians.

Isn't it fun to be "vibrant?"

Council actions last night

... as told by commenters and observers.  Please correct us if any of these are wrong.

- hired three new full-time firefighters and battalion chief paperwork guy.
- try to come back in July and get a 4/5 vote to close downtown bars at midnight.
- no action on red-light cameras.

10 News: Encinitas is becoming the new PB

Encinitas residents say their downtown is turning into a Pacific Beach-like atmosphere with partying and drinking spiraling out of control. On Wednesday night, they asked the Encinitas City Council to do something to fix it.

"It's dirty, it smells, people are foul-mouthed," one Encinitas resident told the council.
"Public urination, noise levels from people screaming and yelling in the parking areas. Drug use, activity, sales," said another.

Residents say public drunkenness has also become a major problem in the downtown area, leading to wild behavior that they want to see stopped.

"These people are now using my planter boxes as their bathrooms," said a resident. "It's not very nice when I go outside and say, 'Can you please not do that,' then they offer to fight me."

Fire Station Number 5

How does a brand new, multi-million-dollar, cinderblock fire station already have pest infestation?

Did conservatives actually vote for Proposition A in Encinitas?

... asks Brian Brady at the San Diego County Republican blog Rostra.